Thank you for inviting me as an expert witness for the hearing today. I appreciate the opportunity to lend my expertise to the committee, and I invite your questions. My name is Amy Hagstrom Miller, and I oppose these bills. I am the president and CEO of Whole Woman's Health. We operate five licensed abortion facilities and one ASC [ambulatory surgical center] in the state of Texas.

In my testimony I will address four main issues:

There is no safety problem related to abortion care in the state of Texas that this bill is addressing.

The existing abortion facility regulations are rigorously enforced and are sufficient to ensure the health and safety of women in Texas.

Medication abortion is safely offered in clinic settings and falls completely outside the scope of practice for an ASC.

Requiring MDs to have admitting privileges is not equally enforced over other medical specialties, nor is it necessary to ensure the health and safely of Texas women seeking abortion care.

We have over 40 years of safe abortion on record in Texas, and the current regulatory system is more than adequate to ensure women's health and safety. The ASC requirements put forth in this bill are unnecessary and completely unrelated to patient safety.